Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #44

Wild birds are descended from the time of the dinosaurs. They have seen the continents drift apart, saying goodbye to long-lost cousins as the oceans widened between them. They have managed to occupy almost all terrestrial ecosystems and can even swim better than most fish. They followed the insects into the sky to take advantage of a seemingly inexhaustible food resource and a multitude of inaccessible, safe nest sites. As a result of the relative safety of flight they have also been able to find the security to explore “sexual selection”. Over millions of years females have selected males to simply look more beautiful. Today, the most brightly colored, the one with the longest tale or biggest crown, the bowerbird with the largest, most elaborately decorated stage, gets the lady…

Join the Wild Bird Revolution today!! Be the first to introduce your friends, family and colleagues to the freedom and splendor of birds in the wild! Advances in digital photography have given us the opportunity to capture the beauty and freedom of birds in the wild like never before. Here are the “Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week” drawn from the thousands of photographs submitted to the Wild Bird Trust for consideration every week. Celebrate the freedom and splendor of birds in the wild with us and stimulate positive change by sharing how beautiful the birds of the world really are…

Cape eagle-owls are found from Eritrea and Ethiopia S to Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. They are part of local folklore throughout their range. (Jay van Rensburg)

Cape Parrots are highly social parrots that can only be found in areas with Afromontane forest patches. There are less than 1,000 remaining in the wild, all of which face the ravages of beak and feather disease. (Rodnick Clifton Biljon / Cape Parrot Project)

Common terns breed in temperate and subarctic regions of Europe, Asia and N America. They are strongly migratory and winter in coastal tropical and subtropical regions. (Antero Topp)

Galahs are also known as rose-breasted cockatoo, galah cockatoo, roseate cockatoo and “pink and grey”. They are one of the most common and widespread cockatoos in the open country of mainland Australia. Photographed here in Melbourne. (Radhakrishnan Sadasivam)

Himalayan bulbuls are the national bird of Bahrain, and are found in Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Tajikistan. (Balaji Pg)

Indian eagle-owls are seen near rocky places within the mainland of the Indian Subcontinent S of the Himalayas and below 5000 feet elevation. (Mohamed Mothi)

Indian rollers are found throughout tropical Asia from Iraq E across the Indian Subcontinent to Indochina. They are best known for the aerobatic displays of the males during the breeding season. (Jineesh Mallishery)

Jerdon’s leafbirds are found in forest and woodland in India and Sri Lanka. Like other leafbirds, the call of Jerdon’s Leafbird consists of a rich mixture of imitations of the calls of various other species of birds. (Anantha Murthy)

Rufous-tailed plantcutters are found nesting in the scrubby forest edge and in dense river valleys in Chile and W Argentina. (Owen Deutsch / Owen Deutsch Photography)

Scaly-breasted munias occur from India and Sri Lanka E to Indonesia and the Philippines. They have been introduced to many other parts of the world with feral populations in Puerto Rico. (Prasanna Bhat)

Southern carmine bee-eaters occur across sub-equatorial Africa, ranging from KwaZulu-Natal and Namibia to Gabon, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kenya. They are strongly migratory spending the breeding season between August and November in Zimbabwe, before moving to South Africa for the summer months, and then migrating to equatorial Africa from March to August. (Rainer Summers / http://www.rockjumperbirding.com)

Please join the Wild Bird Trust page on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to receive all wild bird photo updates and news from our research and conservation projects in the field. Submit your own photos and become part of this important public awareness campaign to bring the magic of wild birds to the world. Prepare to be blown away every week… The Wild Bird Trust was founded in South Africa in August 2009 with the primary objective of keeping birds safe in the wild. The trust aims to encourage the use of flagship endangered bird species as “ecosystem ambassadors” in their indigenous habitat. The trust focusses on linking ordinary people with conservation action in the field through innovative marketing campaigns and brand development. Saving Africa’s birds is going to take a determined effort from all of us.